Today's rapidly changing technology requires application users to migrate from one platform to another, such as Windows 7™ to Windows 8™, or changes to runtime environment, such as App-V™, every couple of years. For every instance of such migration, users have to validate each application to ensure compatibility of the application with the migrated platform. This process might need to be repeated for every major and/or minor new release of a given platform. As organizations and users demand new and improved features, the frequency of updating platforms increases, thereby also increasing the importance of the migration from one platform or version to another.
Such migration is critical for enterprise users running thousands of applications for any given project on any given platform. And each such application can be associated with many different algorithms that detect compatibility of the application with various platforms and platform versions. That is, verification of applications and their associated algorithms for any given platform can be very complex and time consuming. Traditionally, such migration and verification is implemented manually, costing the organization a significant number of man hours (or months or years) and cost.
While a number of current techniques can be used to perform an accurate analysis to detect compatibility of an application across different platforms, the current techniques often involve significant manual configuration to identify the platforms that require compatibility testing, and which algorithms to run for each application. Such a process can be time consuming and can also require ongoing maintenance. Furthermore, manual configuration usually requires an administrator or technician with significant specialized knowledge.
Manual configuration is also prone to errors, leading to false reports. For example, a compatibility report for an application may include false positive results showing that an application is not compatible with a platform because the wrong algorithm was selected during manual configuration, whereas in reality the application is indeed compatible when analyzed using the correct algorithm. A reduction in the percentage of false positives is desired when migrating between platforms, to increase system efficiency and improve the performance of computer systems and networks.